NTSC to PAL, anyone?

Hello There,
I'm about to buy Premier and I'm excited about it. I'm learning and you'll see that from my question.
Can anyone tell me if Premier has the ability to output an NTSC project to PAL? My camera is NTSC. My client needs a PAL end result.
Or, if that's not possible, what program will do the job and how's the quality of the result?
Thanks,
BT

Crellin Sound wrote:
Hmmmm,
Just how tricky is the frame rate conversion going from NTSC to PAL? We'll probably shoot at 24fps, but one never knows. There's a possibility that this could go to TV.
And just how much visual color difference is there between NTSC and PAL? Does the difference between 16 - 235 for NTSC and 0 - 255 for PAL really matter? Is it noticeable?
Thanks,
BT
Well, make sure you know at least what you are shooting
I just gave it a try using AME, max render quality & frame blending and the result is... let me put is this way: you'll see the difference comparing both clips, especially if the source is interlaced, for progessive its a quite a bit better. Some people would say just play it back at 25 fps, the lesser speed is visually below being perceivable, but you will get audio shifting.
Using time remapping might be better, I had good result using Apples Compressor which uses optical flow for rendering intermediate frames (which is not good for CG, by the way). After Effects has similar capabilities, but I haven't used them yet.
As long as you stay in HD you wont notice any color differences since there arent any. Both use the same color space.

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DVD Footage for FCP Edit - how to tell if NTSC or PAL?!

Hi all, apologies if this seems like a stupid request but I have a job at the moment calling for me to extract footage from a DVD, edit in FCP, add a few bits from Motion etc., but I can't work out if the DVD is NTSC or PAL!
I intend to extract the video (no issues with copyright) via DVDxDVPro but am unsure if the DVD has been encoded in NTSC or PAL. The footage it contains is from both the States (NTSC) and South Africa (PAL) so how do I tell? I don't want to go through a standards conversion if I can help it.
I am keen to try to retain as much quality as possible (client can't provide tape) so also any thougts on the best output from DVDxDVPRo for FCP editing?
Thanks all,
Best wishes
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Hi Thomas, that's it!
Thanks for this - it clearly shows the TV standard and the resolution plus 4:3 etc., so everything I needed for confirmation.
Glad I cheked because it was in Pal - thought the conversion in DVDxDVPro looked a bit ropey.
This realy baffled me - seemed so simple but couldn't find a way to tell the standard. Learn something everyday...
I am using DVCPro for export from DVDxDVPro - anyone thoughts on a better option?
Thanks again for the answer - and so quick on a Sunday too!
Kind regards
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Where can I check to see if project has been imported in NTSC or PAL?

I have been importing DV tapes from both NTSC and PAL DV camcorders and I think I may have made a mistake on a take and recorded an NTSC tape in PAL. I can't find anywhere that tells me if my projects are in PAL or NTSC. Does anyone know how I can check?
Thanks
Kevin

[email protected] wrote:
...I tried what you said but it only gives me the option to see codecs under 'more info' when I view the info on the thumbnail files and then it still doesn't tell me if it is Pal or NTSC. When I right click on the file in the finder the only info I get is that it is a DV Movie....
.... ooops..
in case you own QTpro or the free tool Mpeg Streamclip, open file, hit Apple-I and read in the info framerate/fps: 25=PAL, 29.97=NTSC..

NTSC to PAL DVD

I am attempting to make a PAL DVD in DVDSP 3. I changed the disc and encoding settings to PAL and encoded my stand alone movie from media 100 which was 720x480 as PAL.
I watch the DVD on my g4 apple dvd player and it's fine, but when I watched it on my apex dvd player, I saw these lines running across horizontally. Thick lines, mostly on fast motion, but other places too.
When my client watches the same dvd on his computer, (mac 0s 9 i believe) he sees what I see on the apex.
Question: Is this normal, since my monitor is NTSC to see these lines? Normally when I've watched a PAL piece on a PAL player on an NTSC monitor, I see color problems and tracking problems... but not these lines...
Also: What is good for a stand alone program, to convert files from NTSC to PAL?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me.

You can't just encode from one standard to another
You need to use a standards converter, or have original PAL footage
What do you mean by "I changed the disc and encoding settings to PAL and encoded my stand alone movie from media 100?"
Just changing to PAL in DVD SP if the original footage is NTSC doesn't change the source footage and creates a PAL DVD.

NTSC to PAL Compression for DVD Studio Pro

I am trying to make PAL MPEG2s using Compressor. My videos are roughly 15 minutes long (I have 6 going onto one DVD). I altered one of the Presets to PAL, 16x9, one pass VBR, 4.5 to 7 data rate, best for the motion setting. And I get the typical odd chunky feeling during motion within the frame. Meaning frames look removed (or added) during movement. I looked at it not only on my MAC but on a PAL DVD routed to a true PAL monitor.
Any advice for settings I should try? I have two tests rendering - I moved up to 2 pass VBR, 5-8 data rates, better motion and best motion. I should be able to look at them this evening; but from the folks I talked to, I'm not hopeful. Has anyone figured a way to make PAL MPEG2s look good short of having PAL masters made and a large Post house do the files on their very expensive equipment?
Thanks,
Cindy S.

What version of Compressor are you using? Compressor 2 has frame rate conversion settings under the Frame Controls tab (offering various levels of quality).
In any case, you might want to try the freeware utility JES Deinterlacer since it supports fairly good NTSC to PAL conversion using either frame blending or a form of inverse telecine (to convert from NTSC's 29.97fps to PAL's 25fps). If you're using Compressor 1.X then this may be your best option unless you are willing to spend some money on an alternative, third-party solution.
You can download JES Deinterlacer from VersionTracker.com -- it comes with instructions.<small><hr width="75%"><small>If this suggestion helps in any way, a confirmation or acknowledgment would be appreciated, since that would also help others who may be having the same difficulty. Do for others as you would have them help you.<center>Thanks for sharing, Waymen.</center></small>

HD NTSC to PAL Debacle

Dear Compression sages,
I'm attempting to convert my NTSC DVCpro HD 720 Quicktime to PAL to make a PAL DVD in DVDSP. So I need a PAL mpeg2. My trouble starts here.
In compression I followed all the settings to convert to PAL. The resulting mpeg was a little rough in terms of quality, but it was the best I could get it. It seemed to play alright.
But to my horror when I dropped the clip into the DVDSP timeline I discovered that all the subtitles I had made in my NTSC DVDSP project gradually went out of sync. The DVDSP project had been fully converted to PAL, every menu. But this gradual de-syncing of the subtitles confused me. And this is not the kind of project that I can easily move the subtitles over. 26 min, heavy on the lines, 5 subtitle tracks.
I checked the audio sync and it seemed to be in sync, but I couldn't be clinically certain frames weren't being dropped towards the end. I did some research and discovered that many people had been having trouble with conversions from NTSC to PAL. Out of sync audio issues, frames being dropped, etc.
In desperation I consulted a friend, who recommended I use a FCP plug-in to do the conversion called Nattress Standards Conversion. He said he had had frame dropping issues with other transfers, but that the NSD plug-in had worked great.
I downloaded the plug-in, and attempted to follow the instructions (bellow) only to find that on step 9, it did not recognize the proper aspect ratio of my HD footage, giving me 4:3 instead of 6:9. I tried switching a few settings, but to no avail. Everytime I dragged and dropped the origional source clip into the filter interface the clip in the viewer altered to 4:3 ratio. Blast, I thought. Probably some little setting I will never discover.
So here I am, back on the compression forums. Has anyone successfully used compressor to convert NTSC HD to PAL without getting drop frames or subtitles gradually going out of sync? How on earth do I do this conversion without horrific results?
NTSC to PAL conversion for Nattress:
1. edit the NTSC clip to an PAL timeline
2. nest the NTSC clip to allow the plugin to scale the converted clip. Because the pixel
dimensions of NTSC video are smaller than PAL, the clip will appear shrunk down in
the timeline canvas viewer. This is normal. The nesting of the clip will allow the
plugin to correctly scale it to PAL pixel dimensions. (select clip and go to the Se-
quence Menu and select Nest Items - make sure the pixels dimensions of the nest
are PAL sized)
3. apply the G Converter plugin to the nested sequence in the PAL timeline. Make sure
the plugin goes onto the nest itself, not the clip that it contains.
4. open the nest in the viewer (control click on the nest and select "Open in viewer" or
select nest then press return)
5. select the ﬁlter tab in the viewer
6. set the correct settings for the desired conversion. In this case, we select Source
Pixel size to be 720 x 480 (NTSC), lower ﬁeld order for source (in this case a NTSC
DV clip) and destination (PAL DV timeline).
7. if you desire the PAL output to be de-interlaced, this can be performed in one step by
selecting progressive output
8. if you would like to experiment with the conversion algorithm using "Smart De-
Interlacing" then this can be selected in the De-Interlace options. The Tolerance
control affects the smart de-interlace and it's effects can be seen by selecting "View
Smart Mask" in the De-Interlace Options.
9. the original NTSC clip that was edited to the PAL timeline must now be dropped from
the project browser onto the Source Clip image well in the ﬁlter. The plugin will use
this video clip for all the image data for the conversion. This is the important step
that makes this plugin different from any other, and is vital to it's successful operation.

I downloaded the plug-in, and attempted to follow the instructions (bellow) only to find that on step 9, it did not recognize the proper aspect ratio of my HD footage, giving me 4:3 instead of 6:9. I tried switching a few settings, but to no avail. Everytime I dragged and dropped the origional source clip into the filter interface the clip in the viewer altered to 4:3 ratio. Blast, I thought. Probably some little setting I will never discover.
Email Graeme Nattress with your problem. He does a good job supporting his plugins.
x

Exporting 14:9 video for NTSC and PAL

Hello,
I'm working on 1080p video that will need to have a few output format, namely HD and SD 14:9 for NTSC and PAL.
At the moment I have no issue with getting the 14:9 video inside SD format, but my question is more of, should I turn my aspect ratio to PAL, NTSC, or should I keep it as square pixel? Viewing from inside a computer, the ones that has aspect ratio looked a bit squashed or stretched, and that worries my producer. I'm not technically savvy enough in broadcast knowledge to ensure her that everything is going to be fine once the video goes into broadcast, hence I'm posting the question here. I did my search on the web, but nothing seemed to help. Or maybe I'm just a big doofus that missed the very big hint in front of me. If anyone could help me figure this out, or point me in the right direction, I would really really appreciate it.
Regards,
Deo

Hey guys. Thank you for your input.
I think I may have overcomplicated the question in my state of panic with the 14:9 thing. Yes, the client did ask for 14:9 video, which to my knowledge is a scaled down HD video in SD sequence. A bit bigger than 16:9 in SD sequence, with smaller letterbox and cropped sides. From what I've read (in wikipedia), it's used in UK, Irish, French, Spain, and Australia. So the PAR should still follow SD PAL and NTSC PAR.
I've been barking the wrong tree, and after reading this, it seemed clear that I should be using PAR as TVs pixel is not square. And it's fine to have squashed and stretched picture of these outputs because computer's pixel is square. Right?
I'm not really in a position to ask the station, as this is a regional job with a few countries involved, so I'm not directly in contact with the stations themselves. But hypothetically, if I can ask, will they give me a set of guidelines to follow?
Regards,
Deo

Converting NTSC to PAL with chapter markers

Hey guys,
I have just a quick question.
I am making a home made video. I did all the editing in FCP and made a great DVD in iDVD. I would like to do the same thing in PAL format so I can send it to my parents in Europe. My original footage is in NTSC. I did my own research and tried using compressor to change format to PAL.
I tried several different settings (PAL DV, Mpeg 2 PAL) but the outcome movie is always missing chapter markers.
I also tried to import the PAL movie (after conversion in Compressor) to FCP and added chapter markers but did not work.
Does anybody know how to convert the format from NTSC to PAL and keep the chapter markers at the same time? I would like to mantain as high quality as possible.
Thanks for your help.
iMac G5 Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)
iMac G5 Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Well, this seemed to work. However, being completely new to converting to PAL, I was surprised to see the "jumpiness" that goes along with the frame rate drop. Looking at it taxes the eyes as it seems like its dropping frames every so often. I realize, through more research that this is due to the 25 FPS nature of PAL plus the fact that I'm converting and not just authoring from PAL material. Having said this, is there a tried and true way of "smoothing" this jumpiness that anyone would share?
A friend of mine suggested that when I place the file into DVDSP, I choose the TOP field in the encoding tab, prior to burning the disk. In the past I have always left the FIELD menu set at Auto. He says that setting it to TOP might help a little.
He also told me that a lot of the software based converters don't do the best of jobs. Although acceptable results may come from tweaking the settings, the best way to convert NTSC to PAL (with the most pleasing results) is by using a very high end converter (not a computer). Although you have to weigh out the circumstances such as how many disks will eventually be converted compared to available budget, is it worth spending a little extra for a master that will ultimately see 1,000 copies?
I'm planning on showing my client the burn with field dominance set to TOP, on Monday. Hopefully she'll find it acceptable and I'll be able to move on with this project. Thanks for all the help!
Steve
Power Mac, G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

NTSC vs PAL: difference in compatibility

I wonder if there is a difference between compatibility of NTSC and PAL camera's of the same model. Checking on the supported camcorder list one can read the Sony HDR XR500 is compatible for NTSC but isn't mentioned in the PAL list.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3290?viewlocale=en_US#2
I'm thinking of buying this camera in a PAL version and use iMovie09 and FCE 4. Does anyone knows of this will work without any third party software?
Thanks in advance...

I have heard that there is no such a thing as NTSC HD or PAL HD and that HD is just HD regardless of the country it's in. Is that true?
Yes, its true. As far as "definition" goes, there is no difference between a 1080 image shot in a PAL region and a 1080 image shot in an NTSC region. However, which frame rate you intend to shoot at eg 50i / 60i, 25p / 30p etc will certainly make a difference. Most consumer level HD camera's are restricted depending upon the electrical frequency of the market region they are being sold in. If your camera was purchased in a 60Hz ( NTSC ) region then its likely your camera will only support 60i, 30p 24p etc. If its purchased in a 50Hz (PAL) region then it's likely to only support 50i, 25p etc.
Generally it is only the higher end pro camera's that support switching between systems ... neither the HV20 nor the XH-A1 have this capability.
Could I rent an HD camera in Europe and shoot stuff with it there and then bring the resulting tapes back here to the U.S. and play them on my U.S.-purchased HD cameras and decks and load it into my current FCP setup in L.A. without any problem?
Well that would depend on what camera you rented as compared to what your current setup is ... what's your current setup and what do you have in mind to rent?

NTSC to PAL in AME CS4

Please advise if I missed the forum that is strictly for Adobe Media Encoder CS4, having found none I've chosen to post here.
I need to convert a standard NTSC DV file in the MS avi format to PAL DV in the Quicktime format.
While AME CS4 does a much better job than it's predecessor, it's still struggling with the frame rate interpolation, yielding video that's visibly dropping frames to achieve 25fps. Quality converters to a great job of masking the frame conversion.
My question is: 1) Am I missing some setting tweak that could improve the look of the PAL conversion? 2) If not, can anyone recommend another software encoder that DOES do an outstanding job of converting NTSC to PAL. I'm thinking of buying either Sorenson Squeeze or Canopus MediaCoder.
Brent

Try this process.
It was originally developed to create 24p DV files, but can also be used to convert NTSC to PAL (and quite well I might add). The details are in the Read Me.
Going from AVI to MOV is another issue, though. Not sure how specifically to do that one as I'm really not a Mac fan.

Converting a video to watch overseas NTSC to Pal

Hello.....I am going to create a photo montage using imovie and idvd. I will later be making copies and I have had a request for a copy for overseas, could anyone give me their suggestions on how I should do this properly. Is it simply going into the idvd "project" drop down mode and change the video setting from NTSC to Pal?
Also I believe that the dvd will be needed for Germany, I do not know what format they are in. I am guessing that they are in the PAL format but I am not sure. Does anyone know this?
Thanks so much in advance.

Yes, Germany (and the rest of W Europe) uses PAL.
And as Kirk says, all modern DVD players sold in Europe play NTSC as well.
Which apparently is not the case in the US (playing PAL DVDs).

NTSC to PAL / 24fps

Hi guys,
I'm shooting a tv show for MTV tr in New York City and since it will air in Europe it has to be set in PAL so I am unsure on how to deal with the settings.
I have NTSC 24fps footage that needs to be edited. My question is when I start a new project in Premiere CS3 should I choose NTSC or PAL or should I start editing in NTSC and convert it to PAL?
Second question, when I import the footage in Premiere which, is located in my external hard drive with usb 2.0, the video seems jerky or choppy on the camera movements such as panning and any fast camera moves. Do you know how or where I can adjust this problem? Could it be that my project was shot in 24 fps and the new project file fps is 29.97? I didn't change any fps settings in the new project, so I assumed it's automatically 29.97.
My computer:
Windows XP
2.80GHz Pentium D CPU
2.00GB RAM
Third question, should I render my project and burn a DVD or does it render when you burn a DVD automatically?
Can anyone please help me with this?
Thank you so much!
Firat

From what you have described and looking at the specs I feel there is little chance of your program being accepted for television anywhere.
Need some answers...
What camera was used to shoot the footage at 24fps? Is it DV or HDV?
Why did you not choose a project setting of 24fps rather than 29.97?
Why did you use USB to transfer files rather than Firewire?
Capturing USB sort of indicates that your camera is DVD or HDD based and using Mpeg files which CS3 doesn't like, nor do TV stations.
Don't worry too much about burning a DVD until you work out if the footage is editable.

NTSC to PAL series conversions.

Hi anyone got any good oil on setting up compressor to run regular NTSC to PAL conversions of 28:30 minute duration series programming?
I am upgrading from FCP 4 to Studio and going to 2GHz dual core G5 from aged G4 Digi Audio 733, and being able to get NTSC on DVCAM, then standards convert downunder would fit the old bottom line requirements for a regular community tv series I am responsible for putting to air. Read; smell of the proverbial oily rag operation. However I read issues with version 2 such as ridiculous render times, etc.
Question; Would it be better to use compressor version 1 until bugs ironed out? Can it be used?
Sagely wisdom greatly appreciated. Regards, ted.
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DV PAL is a set data rate - 3.56 MB/s when run at 25 fps.
If you want a smaller file size you have two choices -
1. convert the file to another codec that allows for smaller frame sizes, slower frame rates and increased intra and inter frame compression.
2. If it must be DV/PAL, cut the length of the video to reach your 200mb limit.
Of course there is the third choice of simply giving them the larger file because that's what an un-compromised DV/PAL version of the file will be.
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NTSC to PAL - frame by frame

I want to convert a 24p film (HD) from NTSC to PAL. I do NOT want to generate / render new frames to preserve the exact running time. I want the conversion to take the first 25 frames and play them in the first second, then assign the next 25 frames to the next second and so on. NO rendering involved, only "reshuffling" if you will. I am totally happy with the 4% speed change for video and audio (I realize audio may have to be speeded up thru a separate process),
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Use Compressor.
Set the Frame Rate to 25 and in Frame Controls under RATE CONVERSION, select: so source frames play at 25 fps.
I suppose you could use Cinema Tools for this as well.
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NTSC to PAL, anyone?

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